Free Code Name Cassandra by Meg Cabot Page B

all practically ruined my life this past spring, following me around, bugging my family. Well, it’s over, okay? Get it through your heads: lightning girl has hung up her bolts. I am not in the missing person business anymore.”
    Jonathan Herzberg looked more than a little taken aback. He glanced from me to Pamela and then back again.
    “M-Miss Mastriani,” he stammered. “I’m not … I mean, I don’t—”
    “Mr. Herzberg isn’t a reporter, Jess.” Pamela’s voice was, for her, uncharacteristically soft. That, more than anything, got my attention. “We never allow reporters—and we have had our share of illustrious guests in the past—onto our properly. Surely you know that.”
    I suppose I did know that, somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind. Lake Wawasee was private property. You had to be on a list of invited guests even to be let through the gates. They took security very seriously at Camp Wawasee, due to the number of expensive instruments lying around. Oh, and the kids, and all.
    I looked from Pamela to Mr. Herzberg and then back again. They both looked … well, flushed. There was no other way to put it.
    “Do you two know each other or something?” I asked.
    Pamela, who was by no means what you’d call a shrinking violet kind of gal, actually blushed.
    “No, no,” she said. “I mean … well, we just met. Mr. Herzberg … well, Jess, Mr. Herzberg—”
    I could see I was going to get nothing rational out of Miss J Crew. I decided to tackle Mr. L.L. Bean, instead.
    “All right,” I said, eyeing him. “I’ll bite. If you’re not a reporter, what do you want with me?”
    Jonathan Herzberg wiped his hands on his khaki pants. He must have been sweating a lot or something, since he left damp spots on the cotton.
    “I was hoping,” he said softly, “that you could help me find my little girl.”

C H A P T E R
6
    I looked quickly at Pamela. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Jonathan Herzberg.
    Great. Just great. Mary Ann was in love with the Professor.
    “Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time,” I said. “I don’t do that anymore.”
    A lie, of course. But he didn’t know that.
    Or maybe he did.
    Mr. Herzberg said, “I know that’s what you told everyone. Last spring, I mean. But I … well, I was hoping you only said that because the press and everything … well, it got a little intense.”
    I just looked at him.
Intense
? He called being chased by government goons with guns
intense
?
    I’d show him intense.
    “Hello?” I said. “What part of ‘I can’t help you’ don’t you understand? It doesn’t work anymore. The psychic thing is played out. The batteries have run dry—”
    As I’d been speaking, Mr. Herzberg had been digging around in his briefcase. When he stood up again, he was holding a photograph.
    “This is her,” he said, thrusting the photo into my hands. “This is Keely. She’s only five—”
    I backed away with about as much horror as if he’d put a snake, and not a photo of a little girl, into my fingers.
    “I’m not looking at this,” I said, practically heaving the photo back at him. “I
won’t
look at this.”
    “Jess!” Pamela sounded a little horrified herself. “Jess, please, just listen—”
    “No,” I said. “No, I won’t. You can’t do this. I’m out of here.”
    Look, I know how it sounds. I mean, here was this guy, and he seemed sincere. He seemed like a genuinely distraught father. How could I be so cold, so unfeeling, not to want to help him?
    Try looking at it from my point of view: It is one thing to get a package in the mail with all the details of a missing child’s case laid neatly out in front of one … to wake the next morning and make a single phone call, the origins of which the person on the receiving end of that call has promised to erase. Easy.
    More than just easy, though: Anonymous.
    But it is another thing entirely to have the missing kid’s parent in front of one, desperately begging for help. There is